


the slow death of Steve Rogers [at the hands of the stupid, sexy, considerate stripper]

by MaddieWritesStucky (Madeleine_Ward)



Series: Glad to love you, Steve Rogers [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Architect Steve Rogers, Bucky the Bad Boy Fantasy Stripper, Consent is Sexy, Dirty Talking Bucky Barnes, Enthusiastic Ongoing Consent, James 'Fuck Me' Barnes, M/M, Natasha Romanov Is a Good Bro, Nipple Piercings, Obscene Use of Lollipops, Steve Rogers Gets His Groove Back, Stevie the Secret Sub, Stripper AU, Tattoos, The Safety of Fort Boner, Thirsty Internal Monologues, do not copy to another site, lap dance, public boners
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-15
Updated: 2019-12-15
Packaged: 2021-02-25 04:35:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,371
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21790150
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Madeleine_Ward/pseuds/MaddieWritesStucky
Summary: Steve’s first thought is that he knows this song.His second thought is little more than a stream of expletives, as the male embodiment of Fuck Me walks out onto the stage. Although, ‘walk’ seems an entirely inappropriate word…the man struts, stalks, and all at once the frenzied reaction of the crowd makes perfect sense.If Steve had known this was about to make an entrance, he’d have been screaming for it too._____In which Steve Rogers is promised a night of highly-skilled dance performance, and gets exactly that...just not in the way he expected.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Series: Glad to love you, Steve Rogers [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2104122
Comments: 48
Kudos: 417
Collections: Stucky Bingo 2019





	the slow death of Steve Rogers [at the hands of the stupid, sexy, considerate stripper]

**Author's Note:**

> Merry Christmas everyone, I'm back on my bullshit with some shameless stripper!Bucky action. Loosely inspired by my own experience at Magic Mike Live, and written with a nod to the pals [/enablers] over on House of Stucky. 
> 
> Stucky Bingo Square: Striptease

_[Steve: This is NOT the evening I was promised.]_

Steve stares hard at his phone where it sits on the table, as if the magnitude of his discomfort might filter through with the message if he glares long enough. The music is loud in his ears; the frenzied uproar of the women seated at the other tables around the room louder still, and he’s pretty sure all the blood in his body is sitting square in his cheeks right now.

…Well, _most_ of the blood in his body.

_[Nat: What I promised you was a night of highly skilled dance performance. Was I wrong?]_

Steve’s eyes flick up to the man grinding his way across the stage, clothed only in a pair of well-fitting jeans and the smirk of someone who knows they have the entire room on the hook, and he has to admit - Natasha _isn’t_ wrong, and that’s exactly the problem. The guy _is_ a good dancer, every man who has stepped onto that stage over the past thirty minutes has been a good dancer; most of them jacked to hell and back too, but that’s not the point.

_[Steve: YOU SENT ME TO A STRIP SHOW]_

He grabs for his drink just to busy his hands, shooting cursory glances up at the stage as the bassline kicks heavy at his seat. Before tonight, he’d only ever been grateful for the way puberty had hit him like a freight train and turned ninety pounds of nothing much into a “whole goddamn meal” as Nat puts it when she wants to watch him squirm. But sitting here now, the lone possessor of the only Y chromosome in the audience? Now, he’d give anything to be back in that body that could turn sideways and disappear. The fact that he shares a common interest with every woman here comes in a hard second to the feeling that he’s gate-crashing girls’ night out. 

_[Nat: Calm down Steven, it’s only semi-stripping. There’s no dick on display.]_

_[Nat: And you can’t honestly tell me your gay little heart isn’t enjoying it just a little bit...]_

Steve drums his fingers against the table top, watching the dancer make his way over to a woman who looks about ready to pass out from excitement. True, none of the performers have taken off anything below the waist, but they’re moving like they don’t have a stitch on them, and it’s _doing_ things for Steve that he’s not sure how to deal with in such a public arena.

Thank god for low lighting and high tables.

_[Steve: Your deception will be overlooked. But only because my gay little heart is a lot turned on right now.]_

_[Nat: Trust me, come Monday morning you’ll be shouting it from the water cooler that I’m the best coworker ever 😉]_

He shoves his phone back in his pocket with a scoff, deciding he’ll discuss this at work at the precise moment hell freezes over. It’s bad enough that Nat knows this is how he’s spending his Friday night, but if Sam or Tony found out? He’d have to quit on the spot.

He watches the dancer finish his routine to a chorus of catcalls and applause, and turns what he’s sure is a very unbecoming shade of red as the guy gives him a wink on his way off the stage. To the credit of all the performers thus far, not a one of them has seemed perturbed by his presence. If any of them have been surprised to see a man in the audience, none of them have shown it; they’ve thrown flirtatious smiles in his direction all night just the same as they have the rest of the crowd, though they’ve kept their distance when it’s come time to single people out for special attention.

…Which probably has far less to do with his gender than the glaring aura of _I AM SO OUT OF MY DEPTHS HERE_ that he’s _definitely_ giving off.

Although, if he’s honest, he was already putting out that vibe long before he stepped into the club tonight. Coming up on a year of singlehood, it’s starting to seem like the more time that passes, the more insecure he is in making any attempt to put himself out there again. Turns out, walking in on your boyfriend getting railed by the guy down the hall who calls everyone ‘bruh’ and brags about the fact that he’s never finished a book in his life is a pretty good way to knock your confidence.

He settles back in his seat, forcing his shoulders down from his ears in a direct message to his rigid posture that _no, we’re NOT gonna tuck-and-roll out of here, so stand down._ It took him all of about two minutes after the show started to realise that sneaking out was not an option - he’d feel like an asshole if any of the dancers caught him skulking away...which they _definitely_ would, given that he’s seated in the _front fucking row_ , thank you Nat. 

At least he can truthfully say now, next time Sam is busting his balls about spending every Friday on the couch in front of Queer Eye repeats, that he makes the odd exception. 

The house lights come up and the emcee returns to the stage, radiating the same effervescent enthusiasm she’s been bringing all night. She asks the crowd if they’re having a good time, if they’re feeling the love, if some of their fantasies are being fulfilled, and the sheer joy in the room is more than a little contagious. 

She hushes the crowd; waiting for them to settle as she moves into her introduction of the next performer. 

“I know, I know, we’re all excited,” she beams, “I see some familiar faces out there tonight, _you_ all know what’s about to happen…” 

The air in the room picks up with a low buzz of electricity, a few appreciative hollers sounding from the crowd. 

“There’s a season for all things, isn’t there?” she begins with a knowing smile. “Sometimes, you want the _nice_ guy...the one you can take home to meet your family, who says yes to matching Christmas sweaters, and Sunday markets, and loves his mama…” 

The crowd laughs and _aww_ s, and Steve thinks just quietly that _that_ guy sounds pretty great.

“We’ve seen a lot of those tonight, haven’t we? Those _nice_ boys. But sometimes...” the emcee sighs, “ _sometimes,_ you just want the _bad_ boy.”

Anticipation swells palpably, the audience growing louder as the lights fall dim. Steve glances around at the women who clearly know something he doesn’t; already poised at the edge of their seats, eyes bright and glued to the stage.

“Someone a little rough around the edges...a bad ass with a _great_ ass…” Her smile grows as the crowd’s reaction flares. “Someone who _knows_ how to put you in your place, and _keep_ you there until he’s good and done with you...” 

She starts making her way off stage, eyeing the crowd pointedly. “You know who he is, he’s why you keep coming back. Ladies, I leave you in the _oh_ so capable hands...of James.”

The crowd is deafening at this point, and the secondhand excitement alone has Steve’s pulse hiking as a song floods over the sound system.

_I’ll torture you_

_Take my hand through the flames_

_I’ll torture you_

_I’m a slave to your games_

_I’m just a sucker for pain_

Steve’s first thought is that he knows this song.

His second thought is little more than a stream of expletives, as the male embodiment of Fuck Me walks out onto the stage. Although, ‘walk’ seems an entirely inappropriate word…the man struts, _stalks_ , and all at once the frenzied reaction of the crowd makes perfect sense.

If Steve had known _this_ was about to make an entrance, he’d have been screaming for it too.

The guy is six-foot something of lithe, bare-chested glory, and when the bassline of the song kicks in and he starts to move that outrageous body, Steve immediately forgets that his mouth and eyes have a ‘closed’ function.

He wants to stare at every part of this guy all at once, his eyes bouncing around for a frantic moment before they land on the artwork covering the dancer’s left arm. A mosaic of sharp, abstract ice fractals, tattooed in shades of blue and grey, crawl all the way up from the back of his hand, up over his shoulder, and across his absurdly defined pec, and Steve can’t decide if he’d rather draw it or run his tongue over it.

Probably both.

Both is good.

His gaze continues its slow drag across Fuck Me’s chest, where the stage lights catch and glint off the barbells spiked through his nipples (which will _definitely_ be making an appearance in tonight's jerk-off highlight reel). His jaw drops in steady increments as he drinks in the taut abs and carved out V of slim hips, and he spends far longer than he’d ever admit staring at those low-slung grey sweats, trying to gauge what Fuck Me’s got going on underneath, and low-key praying that they might fall down or just straight up bust at the seams. His thighs look built for crushing skulls, and Steve’s never been more ready to die. 

It would have been enough, that body. It’s not often Steve comes across someone who looks like they could manhandle him in bed without even breaking a sweat, and he’s already pitched his tent squarely in Camp Please God _Yes_ on that merit alone. 

But then he clocks the guy’s _face_ , and he thinks this might just be the feeling people are referring to when they talk about having a ‘religious experience’.

Fuck Me is made up of the kind of angles that rub Steve’s architect-brain in all the right ways. The sharp cut of his jawline is at fierce odds with his stupidly plush mouth, which harbors just the faintest hint of bashfulness at its upturned corners. His eyes are the kind of blue that Steve would wax poetic about if he could rub two words together; the hint of grey in them set off by the silver stud through his right eyebrow, and his dark hair is gathered up in a loose knot that would look hella good wrapped around Steve’s fist.

Steve melts a little further down in his seat, angling his traitorous, informant crotch further out of sight under the table. He should look away, should think of baseball; should be doing literally _anything_ other than staring at the very thing that’s got him tenting his jeans in public, but his caveman brain won’t permit his gaze to budge a single inch in any direction.

Fuck Me moves like he was made for it; like the song was written for the sole purpose of giving him something to roll his body to. He knows exactly what beats to hit hard and when to let his body turn liquid, and there’s a strength and finesse to his movements that suggest he’s as much the product of years of training as inherent talent.

 _Yeah,_ Steve thinks, watching the way he plays into the enthusiasm of the crowd as the song throbs on, _you know_ _exactly_ _what you’re doing._

Fuck Me’s eyes flick over to him, and for a stomach-dropping moment Steve wonders if his thirsty internal monologue has in fact not been quite as internal as he thought. But he probably couldn’t make sound come out of his mouth right now if he tried; all of his internal processes entirely focused on scavenging blood flow from his dick to supply his vital organs. 

A knowing smirk pulls at Fuck Me’s mouth as he fixes his attention squarely on Steve. He starts moving his way across the stage towards him, and it’s simultaneously the best and worst thing that’s ever happened to Steve when the guy stops dead in front of him, holding his gaze, and mouths along with the song...

_I wanna chain you up_

_I wanna tie you down_

And Steve is...nodding? He’s actually fucking nodding, like the human disaster that he is, because his literal wet dream is standing directly in front him, making unwavering eye contact as he sings about bondage, and the three brain cells that are still online in Steve’s head can’t think of anything they’ve ever wanted more than for this exact man to do those exact things to him. 

Fuck Me ( _James,_ Steve chastises himself, _he has a real fucking name, you pervert)_ drops into a low crouch at the edge of the stage, all of three feet away from the useless puddle of arousal formerly known as Steve Rogers, and pins him with a smile that somehow manages to be sex and sunlight all at once. Before Steve even has time to register what’s happening and panic accordingly, James is lithely jumping down off the stage, grabbing a hold of Steve’s chair, and dragging him out from his humility fortress under the table. 

His eyes flick down to Steve’s lap for a mortifying split-second, and Steve can’t decide if he’s fearing or _hoping_ that James will clock his situation and nope out; just shove him back into the safety of Fort Boner and move on to a target whose lap-landscape remains uncompromised.

But James doesn’t falter for even a second, just throws a conspiratorial wink Steve’s way and turns his chair a little further round, angling Steve’s crotch away from the eyes of the audience. Because apparently Steve didn’t already have enough reason to pine for the rest of eternity for this stupid sexy stripper, he just had to go and be considerate, too. 

What an asshole.

“You Nat’s friend?” James leans in to speak close against Steve’s ear, and for a moment the question is lost to the sensory input of James all up in his space, because holy _shit_ this guy smells good. He smells good, and Steve’s sure he can feel the warmth coming off his skin even though no part of him is actually touching Steve. 

“I’m the Steve friend,” he fumbles, compounding his general air of dumb-struck. It would be embarrassing if he still possessed the executive function necessary for shame, but James just grins; looking a little like he wants to eat Steve alive, and a lot like he’s just zeroed in on a target. 

“Rumor has it you could use a little fun tonight, Steve...” James wraps that smile all the way around Steve’s name, his accent hitting Steve square in the Brooklyn, “how about you sit back and let me show you a good time?”

Internally, Steve is screaming; his brain taking every single liberty with what a ‘good time’ might look like with this guy. 

Outwardly, he tempers himself to an enthusiastic nod.

James leans in to speak again, and Steve steels himself to be hit with that timbre that seems to burrow straight into his DNA and make him even gayer. But James’s voice takes on an entirely different tone. 

“Alright Steve,” he says, suddenly soft and earnest, “if at any point you feel uncomfortable or you don’t like what’s happening, you say ‘winter’ and I'll stop, okay? No questions asked.” 

It’s wholly at odds with the raw sexual magnetism he was radiating ten seconds ago, and Steve’s entire being reels at the contrast...and at the sheer absurdity of safe-wording out of _anything_ this guy sees fit to do to him, but he nods all the same. “Okay.”

“This is about you,” James is looking at him intently, eyes locked on Steve’s, “you’re calling the shots, okay? Tell me what our word is so I know you understand.” 

Fuck, those are some blue eyes. 

“I say ‘winter’ if I want you to stop,” Steve's voice is strung tight, his fingertips dug deep into his thighs in compensation for his rapidly slipping grip on reality. 

If he were a bolder man, Steve might ask what the magic word is to get James to _never_ stop. 

“Okay...” James pulls back a little, his smile once again tinged with promises of things he can’t _actually_ be offering. “Do I have your consent to touch you, Steve?” 

_You have my consent to literally set me on fire,_ he thinks, managing to exhale a breathy ‘yes.’

He’s distantly aware of the emcee making some remark about James having found himself someone to play with and the rest of the crowd enthusing wildly, but a new song is starting; one clearly made for the sole purpose of slow grinding, and James is taking Steve’s hands in his and guiding them to drag a slow caress down his chest.

It’s the most intimate physical contact Steve’s had in almost a year, and he has officially checked out of everything that isn’t the feeling of James’s bare skin beneath his palms. He can feel every twitch, every flex of hard muscle beneath smooth skin as James moves to the beat, measured and sinuous; and it’s all Steve can do not to lean forward and follow the path of their hands with his tongue.

James stops the drift of Steve’s hands once they reach his hips, and lets Steve know to keep them there with a firm squeeze. He settles his own hands on Steve’s shoulders, kneading his thumbs gently into the muscle at the base of his neck, and quirks a brow at Steve. “Someone works out,” he murmurs appreciatively, and Steve swallows a soft groan.

James shifts in closer between his knees, casting his gaze down Steve’s body. “You know, when Nat told me to pick on the guy who looks like a demigod, I told her to stop talking shit,” his tongue drags slow across his bottom lip as his stare finds its way back up to Steve’s face, “guess I owe her an apology.”

Steve’s pulse is concerningly erratic at this point, and he wonders if James can feel it where his fingertips are brushing the exposed skin of his neck. He dips his head down like that might make some of the blood run back out of his cheeks, but then James is straddling his thighs and sinking down into his lap, and Steve has no choice but to admit defeat to the proclivities of his Irish complexion.

He funnels all his willpower into keeping his hands in place on James’s hips, and not allowing them to migrate of their own accord to the swell of his ass or up the curve of his back as he grinds slow against him. 

“So I’m trying to work out how to play this, Steve,” James hums, his hips moving in slow circles, “are you the guy that likes to feel in control, likes his men submissive…” 

He threads a hand up into Steve’s hair, and sits back to watch Steve’s face as he gives the faintest suggestion of a tug, “or are _you_ the one who likes to get roughed up a little?”

Steve shivers bodily, unable to catch the whimper that bubbles up before it escapes. 

James’s eyes spark at the sound. “Mm _,_ that’s what I thought,” his voice drops an octave, all gravel around the edges. “Big guy like you, bet you go _weak_ when someone throws you 'round like you don’t weigh a fucking thing.”

Steve swallows hard. James is smiling at him, his expression all playfulness and flirtation, but there’s something in the way he watches Steve’s face as he talks to him, touches him, that speaks of a low-key vigilance; like he’s cataloging and assessing Steve’s every reaction to make sure he’s still within the zone of _yes, I like this, this is okay_.

It’s impressive, really. Probably more so than Steve currently has the capacity to process. But he figures there’ll be time to fawn over James’s elite stripper prowess later, when he’s not dry humping him within an inch of his sanity.

“Yeah, I know your type, Steve,” James leans in to nudge his nose softly up the column of Steve’s throat, his breath ghosting warm and electric over Steve’s skin, “walk around lookin’ like the alpha…like you’d top the fuck outta any guy you took home…”

He touches his lips to the shell of Steve’s ear, featherlight even as the words he breathes there sink heavy to Steve’s core, “…but you’re just a sweet little sub, aren’t you Stevie?”

“ _Fuck,”_ Steve is blushing _every_ where, his entire body, his fucking _brain_ , and James breathes a fond almost-laugh.

He brings a hand to the side of Steve’s face and sweeps his thumb over the deep flush across Steve’s cheekbone. “Are you always this easy?” he asks, eyes bright, "or am I just hitting the right spots?”

Steve can only nod.

_Yes, I’m easy._

_Yes, you’re hitting the right spots._

_Yes, yes, fucking yes to literally anything and everything you say, you walking, talking orgasm._

James shifts his grip to the back of Steve’s chair, straightening his arms and leaning back, arching and rolling his body and sending a fresh wave of uproar through the crowd. He extracts himself from Steve’s lap and moves back a step, and Steve takes a shot at sucking in a full breath for the first time in about four minutes.

He might have been successful this time, too, if not for James suddenly and unceremoniously hauling him to his feet, spinning him around, and pressing him down chest-first against the table.

He feels the warmth of James leaning over him, pressing against his back; his voice once again at Steve’s ear, sincere and stripped of theatrics. “Still with me, Steve?”

“ _Yes,_ ” Steve says, a little too close to a moan. But it’s good enough for James, who runs a hand down the length of his spine and grips Steve by the hips.

He can’t see what James is doing, but he can feel the gyration of his body, and Steve’s deeply grateful that both his face and his painfully erect dick are obscured by their current position. The crowd is going _insane_ ; James is pulling out moves that Steve wishes he could see but is even more grateful he can _feel_ , and he hones all of his attention on the shifting points of contact between James’s body and his.

Hands, hips - a foot, at one point? - pressing against him, using him like a prop, and he can do nothing but lay there and take it. It should probably be embarrassing, having a roomful of eyes on him as this guy lays him out and turns him on and grinds him into the table, in what would most _definitely_ be the best sex of Steve’s life if there weren’t clothes between them. 

But Steve couldn’t care about his surroundings right now if he tried. His devoutly Catholic and deeply conservative grandmother could be sitting at the next table over, and Steve would be asking her to snap some pictures to prove he didn’t dream this whole thing.

James’s hand finds its way up to Steve’s hair and tangles through it, pulling just enough to send the message for Steve to get upright again. Steve lets himself be turned back around in James’s arms and held for a moment, James’s eyes searching his face as he mouths an _‘okay?’_ and waits for affirmation.

Steve nods vehemently, wondering if he looks as fuck-drunk as he feels. Standing face to face, he can see he’s only an inch or two taller than James, and broader only by a little.

James is looking him up and down, eyes glinting like he might just be thinking the same thing, and then he’s taking Steve’s arms and guiding them to wrap around his neck. 

“Hold tight,” he grins, barely giving Steve time to comply before he’s gripping the backs of his thighs and hoisting them up to wrap around his waist. 

_“Oh my god,”_ Steve squeaks a downright embarrassing sound of surprise, wrapping himself around James’s body and clinging to him tighter than what’s strictly necessary. But _fuck,_ James literally just _picked him up,_ and is holding him like they’re about to be photographed for the cover of a romance novel? 

James smiles up at him, fond and more than a little amused. “How’m I doin’ here, Stevie?” He shifts his hands to grip Steve by the ass, bouncing him a little so their bodies rub together. “Am I doing you right?” 

Steve is lighting up like a fucking Christmas tree inside. Nerve-endings that haven’t been online in a _long_ time are sparking back to life with a frightening enthusiasm; endorphins flooding his system in a way that has literally never happened with his clothes on.

" _This is the best night of my life,”_ he breathes, the words rushing out of him, and he doesn’t even try to hide the awe in his voice or plastered all over his face.

James huffs a soft laugh. “Not yet it ain’t, pal.”

He turns to lower Steve back into his seat, and Steve bites back the pathetic noise of protest that creeps up his throat. He’d quite happily spend the rest of the night curled around James like the world’s horniest koala…

...But then James is pinning him with a pointed look and sinking slowly to his knees in front of Steve’s chair, between Steve’s legs, and Steve thinks he might just be able to get very much on board with _this_ arrangement, too. 

James’s hands stroke a slow path up Steve’s legs; thumbs rubbing small circles into the stretched-tight denim over Steve’s thighs, just above the knee. He’s got that shockingly silver-blue, watchful stare fixed squarely on Steve’s face as he slowly reaches one hand into the pocket of his sweats, and when he pulls it back out, it takes Steve a hot second to register what James is holding.

His stomach _flips_. 

He stares at the inoffensive pink lollipop, his brain rifling through possibilities like a pornographic filofax of all the things James could be intending to do with it, and he’s not sure which outcome he’s hoping for most as James tugs the wrapper off with his teeth, and holds it out to him. 

He grasps the stick with shaking fingers and makes to lift it to his mouth, but James stops him with a gentle grasp on his wrist; guiding Steve’s hand so he’s holding the lollipop in his lap.

“What season we in, Steve?” he asks carefully, searching Steve’s face.

Steve’s practically panting, about ready to vibrate out of his _skin_ with how badly he wants what he thinks is about to happen. “Summer,” he gasps, “hottest fucking summer of all time.” 

James grins up at him, all sinful intent as he settles his hands once again on Steve’s thighs. He leans in, slow and deliberate, dipping his head to rub his cheek against Steve’s inner thigh for a fleeting, world-bending moment.He looks up at Steve, holding his gaze as he pauses a few torturous moments, bringing Steve to that knife-edge where anticipation tips into madness...and then he finally, _finally,_ opens his mouth, and strokes his silver-studded tongue languidly over that lucky fucking lollipop.

Steve’s cheeks are on _fire._ He can’t decide if it destroys him more when James looks up at him from under his eyelashes, or when he lets his eyes drift slowly shut as he goes to work on the most salacious suck job of all time. He licks at the lollipop, soft and coy; he wraps his lips around it, and hollows his cheeks, and sucks it like he fucking _means_ it, and just when Steve thinks it can’t possibly get any better...James reaches out to take Steve’s free hand, and guides it up to tangle through his hair.

And _this is it_ , Steve thinks, _this is how I die. With my hand in this stripper’s ridiculously soft hair, as he tongue-fucks a hard candy inches away from my cock. I will literally never be limp again._

It takes every last fiber of Steve’s being not to jizz in his jeans as James goes to town, head bobbing and fingertips flexing into his thighs like it’s the real deal. The only saving grace is the ear-splitting volume of the audience drowning out the sounds of James’s mouth at work in his lap.

After a stretch of time that will forever live in Steve’s memory as his Sexual Awakening 2.0, James pulls back, running his tongue all the way around his glistening, pink-stained lips. The song is winding to a close, and Steve’s surroundings slowly creep back in around the edges of his awareness as James looks up at him with a thousand-watt grin.

And Steve – perpetual thundercloud of the past twelve months, non-smiling, what-is-‘fun’? Steve – he can’t help but grin back. 

A dumb, full-face, this-is-the-best-thing-that’s-ever-happened-to-me grin, and James laughs. 

He gently plucks the lollipop stick from Steve’s fingers and takes his hand in his. “Thank you for your company tonight, Steve,” he says, so warm and genuine it makes Steve’s heart clench, “I hope you got what you came for.” 

Steve nods weakly, wrecked and dazed and half questioning if the last ten minutes of his life actually happened. He hadn’t had the faintest idea what he was walking into tonight, but even if he had, he never could have dreamed up anything like _this_. 

“And then some,” he smiles.

His face is flushed, he’s hard beyond belief, his heart is still kicking desperately inside his rib cage...and he’s _happy._

The rest of the show passes in a haze, and Steve’s smile never falters once. When the evening finally draws to a close and the house lights come up, it feels a little like waking from a dream; like the past two hours of his life occurred somewhere outside of normal time and space.

He’s seated furthest away from the exit, so he waits for the room to clear before he starts making his way out. He’s fishing around in his jacket pocket for his keys when he’s stopped by a gentle hand on his arm, and a familiar voice hesitantly saying his name. 

“Hey, Steve...” James shifts a little on his feet when Steve turns his attention on him, all the charisma and command he’d been radiating on stage suddenly dialled down to somewhere more in the range of ‘bashful’. “Did you enjoy the show?” 

He’s dressed in well-worn jeans and a grey henley that hides precisely none of what Steve now knows is underneath. He’s got a backpack slung over one shoulder and a jacket over his arm, and he looks soft in a way that makes Steve’s chest tighten.

Steve nods, fighting the urge to make a joke about how James just had his face up against six inches of hard evidence that Steve enjoyed the show. “Yeah, I really did...more than I expected.”

The faintest hint of blush spreads across James’s cheeks, and Steve feels something tugging in his chest. It might be the afterglow of the greatest sex-adjacent experience of his life, or it might be that James has, in fact, single-handedly rebooted Steve’s sense of self with his powerful stripper antics, but Steve feels bold in a way he hasn’t for a long while. 

“James,” he begins, his voice only shaking a little, “do you want to go for a drink?” 

The answering smile he gets in return is a sight Steve could definitely get used to. 

“Yeah, I’d like that,” James nods, falling into step beside him as they head for the exit. “One thing though - I’m only 'James' on stage. You can call me Bucky.” 

“Bucky…” Steve turns the name over in his mouth, liking the way it seems to fit the person beside him so much better, "it’s really nice to meet you.” 

* * *

Steve uses his phone precisely twice for the rest of the evening - once, to google the _actual_ lyrics to Purple Haze, because _I swear to god, Bucky, Jimi Hendrix is_ _not_ _singing ‘excuse me while I kiss this guy’..._ and once to send a single text message to Natasha Romanov.

_[Steve: Water cooler. Monday. 9am. Bring a megaphone.]_

**Author's Note:**

> The first song Bucky dances to is [Sucker For Pain](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-59jGD4WrmE) by Imagine Dragons. The second song, I went back and forth between [Permission](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qp1Pq2Fuw30) by Ro James and [Feel It](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yyiKBq_chcY) by Jacquees, but feel free to HC whatever song does it for you.
> 
> I'm maddiewritesstucky over on tumblr if you wanna yell about Stucky with me!


End file.
